Marketing Generosity: Avon's Women's Health Programs and New Trends in Global Community Relations

Abstract

As corporate operations are increasingly internationalized and as goods are sold in a growing number of locations, companies become responsible to new and diverse communities. This essay identifies the emergence of some new strategies of global strategic community relations among US-based multinationals through a case study of Avon Products Inc. It argues that new approaches have emerged from an increased recognition among corporate executives of the need to forge ethical relations with their various constituents, in conjunction with management pressure to make community relations programs an integral component of corporate business strategy. Through a historical, contextual analysis of the Avon World Wide Fund for Women's Health and the Avon Running Global Women's Circuit - an international series of women-only 10K runs and 5K walks - the essay explores the particular valence of offering opportunities for women to participate in sport as a form of global strategic community relations. Further, it seeks to identify the ethical and political commitments enabled and constrained by such programs.